#and fulfill particular Husband and Father Roles

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

"He doesn't need to provide, take care of, or play a heteronormative role for Buck, and that's how Buck snuck in there." This take is sooo big brain and sexy of you, an interesting part of their dynamic is that Eddie CAN'T seriously think "oh if buck was a woman that would be great" because you are so right, they would have never ended up where they are if that was the case. Instead he has to think "if I was gay, we could be in a relationship" Which Adds A Tasty Tasty Element To That Catholic Guilt And Repression Baybee.

And we LOOOOOOVE the Catholic Guilt and Repression in this household!!!

[dreaming-hibi]

Everyone seems to forget that Tsuna is affected not by one but by TWO "bad" parents. In this essay I will bring down both Iemitsu and Nana.

Iemitsu is considered a bad parent because Tsuna himself says so, and we gotta trust what the victim says. If Tsuna claims his father is a deadbeat father, than that's what his father is. Iemitsu might be a respected chief, an understanding mentor and a loving husband, there is no denying he fulfills those roles wonderfully well however, he falls short on his role as a father and that's the role Tsuna most needs out of him. Tsuna doesn't need his father to be a respected chief or an understanding mentor or a loving husband, he needs his father to be a father first and foremost. Instead, Iemitsu tells Nana to claim he was dead/missing. And she did (and I'll be coming back to this later). Now, not only did Tsuna have to live with the fact that his father up and left the house, he had to live with the fact that his father was also, very likely, dead.

Iemitsu-father was dead to Tsuna for two years, the boy had definitely come to terms with it by the start of the series. Except, Iemitsu wasn't dead at all. While it's treated as a comedy skit in the manga, the absolute rollercoaster of emotion Tsuna must have felt at that moment is unimaginable. "I lived with my mom and dad but then my dad started leaving for work until one day he stopped coming home, and then my mom told he was missing but he actually wasn't... oh, and he involved me in some dangerous mafia business", try explaining that to a therapist.

Offenses committed by Iemitsu:

Leave his son without an explanation while his son was at a vulnerable age (Tsuna was at least old enough to remember his dad leaving the house)

Telling his wife to write him off as dead/missing because "It's more romantic that way" (I haven't seen the episode in years but I just checked and that's exactly what he said, wtf)

Appearing in his son's life after being "dead" for years without a reasonable explanation (and no, claiming that he was doing that to protect his family is not an explanation, that's an excuse)

Appearing in his son's life only after he got said son involved in the mafia business

Disappearing as soon as everything is over and not being heard of again until he wants to

Acting like a father when he killed that role himself

I can understand the first offense, after all, Tsuna was a small boy when Iemitsu left. "You were a child, there was no need for you to know" is something adults repeatedly say when they refuse to elaborate on why they kept a child in the dark; and that's something I understand, I don't condone it but I do understand it. But Tsuna was clearly at an age where he could remember his dad leaving, he was at an age where he was emotionally grown-up enough to see his father leaving the house as being the same as being abandoned.

ツナ 「オレと母さんを残して ずっと家を空けてたあんな奴に・・・」

Tsuna uses the word 残す (nokosu) which means "to leave (behind)", which often carries a sense of forgetfulness, as though the act of leaving something behind was done because the person forgot about. "He left behind my mom and me" = "He forgot about us and left". And then he goes on to say "That guy (derogative) was always away from home", which further drives the point that Tsuna has some strong resentment towards his father for leaving without being heard of.

The second offense is, in my humble opinion, bullshit. The japanese use this particular word 「ロマン」 (roman) which is many times translated as "romantic", but which is used to describe a feeling of "pursuing impossible dreams or ideals which deeply define a character". This particular word is mostly used by japanese men to describe a feeling of longing for impossible dreams and ideals that women just cannot understand.

.

.

See what I mean?

Nana (I'm coming for you so sit tight) is so japanese in her essence that she's a woman who is attracted by the idea of a man chasing his impossible dreams (a man who is living the roman), and Iemitsu feeds on that by telling her to write him off as gone and "as becoming one with the stars", because that's more romantic than telling your kid his dad will be doing construction work. A husband and a wife who very obviously love each other and who both think living by their ideals is a much higher priority than their responsibility towards the child they brought into the world. The third offense shows how different Iemitsu and Tsuna are. Iemitsu claims he was keeping his family in the dark because that was how he protected them (through ignorance), and that's bullshit and Tsuna shows us exactly why, like a 100 or so chapters later. During the Future Arc, Tsuna was made to choice between telling his friends the whole truth or keeping them in the dark for their own safety (like Iemitsu). Tsuna decides to say the truth, because he knows what it means and what it feels like to be kept in the dark, especially regarding something that concerns the person directly. Tsuna made that decision because he had been in a similar position.

The fourth offense is perhaps there to show how incapable of being a father Iemitsu is. Iemitsu reappears in Tsuna's life only after Tsuna becomes involved with the mafia, because that's what Iemitsu is good at: the mafia. Perhaps Iemitsu was more involved in the mafia than he was in a normal family situation, which is why he lacks as a father, because he very simply doesn't know how to be a father. He can train, mentor and support Tsuna in the mafia way because that's what he knows how to do, however, that's not what Tsuna needs nor wants. Tsuna needed a father, but that father wrote himself off (so Tsuna unknowingly got another father and this one refuses to leave him alone) and Tsuna had to come to terms with the fact that he didn't have a father to depend on. And that's where the conflict between Tsuna and Iemitsu comes from: Iemitsu trying to act like a dad to the son he had educated to think of him as dead.

To Tsuna the situation must be something like this: his dad gave him up for adoption and now keeps coming back, trying to act like a dad because now the two of them shared the same hobby.

Sorry, Iemitsu, Tsuna found himself a better dad! Although you succeeded in ruining the dad-role for him, so now he's left with some complicated feelings towards Reborn, whom he sees as a figure he can depend on but whom he cannot call "dad" in fear it might end up like it did with you.

His fifth offense ties in with his fourth. Iemitsu only appears when there is something about the mafia going on and then disappears as soon as the situation is no longer related to the mafia. He only tries to act like a father to Tsuna when the mafia is involved, and that is absolute bullshit because that boy needs a father even outside of the mafia.

And finally his last and most important offense: how Iemitsu killed the image of a father in Tsuna's head.

At hearing the news that his father will be back home, after 2 years, Tsuna's shocked reaction is treated more as a joke than a legitimate emotion someone might have towards the sudden undeadness of a father. Nana, his own mother, even goes as far as belittling him and his intelligence when she says (more explicitly in the anime): "Aww Tsuna, you actually believed that story about his disappearance?" and then "How do you think we pay for your school expenses and food, if he were really gone?"

Iemitsu intentionally killed the existence known as "dad" in Tsuna's head, and Nana helped. Tsuna started the series convinced he no longer had a dad, which is why he ended up depending on Reborn, because Reborn was the first authoritative figure that called him a loser to his face while also believing Tsuna was much more than that. Reborn appeared exactly as the kind of figure Tsuna didn't know he needed in his life.

Though both Reborn and Iemitsu are there because of the mafia, Reborn stays for more than just the mafia, and Tsuna can see that. Iemitsu only interacts with Tsuna when the mafia is involved, while Reborn is there for him regardless of whether or not the mafia is involved. Reborn was sent there to make Tsuna the next boss, yet all Reborn did was make this loser of a kid get some confidence in himself and make some friends. Between a tutor whose intentions he knows (he's there to make him boss but somehow he's also trying to make him into a better person) and a dad whose intentions he doesn't know (he tries to teach him this mafia thing he really doesn't want to be involved in), Tsuna's heart chose the one figure he didn't know he always wanted in his life.

Nice going, Tsuna!

I bring this conversation between Tsuna and Iemitsu, which I think further shows the conflict between them.

ツナ 「帰ってこなかったあんたが オレの何が知っている!!」

家光 「お前は愛する母さんとの間に生まれた 俺の息子だ」

Tsuna: "What could you possibly understand about me?! If you're never home!" Iemitsu: "You are my son, born between me and the woman I love."

In what is a typical parent cliche, Iemitsu claims he knows Tsuna solely based on the fact that Tsuna is his son. This is a psychological trap which many parents seem to fall for: a belief that they will always know their children best because it is their children (and that their children might not know themselves because they are still children). Iemitsu fails to acknowledge that Tsuna is his own person and that he might not want to live by his ideals. As to why parents do this? Well, ego, most likely. A parent thinks themselves a god because they created a child, and refuse to acknowledge the fact that their child is just another person they will have to learn to know.

Now, Sawada Nana. The amount of information on this woman is so little that she might as well be of little influence to the plot, expect she's not!

Let's start from the beginning. Nana is described as being kind, but her kindness seems to only go so far, as she will and does ignore things she does not want to deal with. Reborn kicks her son in front of her? She leaves them alone. Her son keeps coming home with mysterious injuries? She ignores it.

Again, all of these are treated as comedy, and Nana is just like any other anime/manga mother. She appears as a 1-dimensional character with no other role than to be there for every other character that isn't her son.

Nana, like Iemitsu, does the bare minimum for Tsuna as a mother. She does provide him with meals and a roof, however she completely neglects the emotional support the boy very obviously needs. There are instances in which she even belittles his feelings (such as when Tsuna was freaking out over his father's appearance and she proceeded to laugh and point out his naiveness at believing her lie).

What kind of freaking mother makes fun of their son for believing something they said?

Certainly not a good one!

And lastly, it was Nana who allowed and helped Iemitsu in being a bad father. Tsuna holds his mother in high respect because he believes Iemitsu abandoned her too, and that is why it is easier for him to forgive her and not his father. However, it was through Nana's emotional neglect that Iemitsu ended up ruining the image of a father in Tsuna's head — her passiveness is what allowed Tsuna to grow into the weak-willed character we meet in the beginning of the series.

In conclusion, both Iemitsu and Nana are to blame for Tsuna's loser behavior. So, if we're gonna talk about how bad of a father Iemitsu is, we should acknowledge the fact that Tsuna has a mother who allowed all of that to happen.

You're welcome to step up and shoot me, I'm open to constructive criticism!

[pookie-mulder]

IWTB musings:

I feel like Scully’s “We’ve gotten out of the car; we can’t be doing this anymore” attitude in iwtb would’ve worked SO much better if they still had William.

As always, Mulder and Scully are dancing around their issues in iwtb, never facing them head-on. Having William in the picture (rather than the elephant in the room) would force them to confront everything they’ve spent so long running from.

Picture it: Mulder is a stay-at-home dad to a six-year-old boy. He needs to dedicate his life to his son — taking him to kindergarten, coaching little league, kissing his skinned knees — not chasing monsters in the dark. He has a duty to provide stability for their family. William is old enough now to understand what a “normal life” should look like, and his parents try their best to give it to him.

Mulder finds fulfillment in his role as a father, but is it enough to keep him satisfied? Or will he always long for the life he left behind and the truth he still so desperately wants to find? Will the love he has for his family be enough to resist the siren call of his quest?

Add another layer: They got married at some point. They made vows to each other and to their son, promising to love and support each other no matter what happens. And when things (the entirety of iwtb) do happen, how does being married change how they react? How does Scully reconcile the promises she made (in front of God) to support Mulder with the reality of their situation? What does a wife do when supporting her husband’s wishes might ultimately tear their family apart? What does she do when holding him back might mean losing a part of him forever?

It would’ve made the tension between them so much more earned, you know? It raises the stakes when there’s a child whose welfare depends on whether his parents come home at the end of the day, whether they’re too caught up in their own trauma to give him the love he deserves, whether they can work through their issues and still love each other through it all.

Anyway, I see no (narrative) reason why they had to give up their son. Mulder and Scully would’ve developed so much more as characters navigating their parental roles than they do dealing with the trauma of leaving him. There is no shortage of trauma in this show; there was no need to pile more on top of them for the sake of “growth.” (Plus, they already lost a child: Emily. They could’ve brought that back somehow if they really wanted this particular brand of grief.)

[peaches2217]

Fuck it! Expectant Parents Mareach post. Putting this one under a Read More to hide my shame. Y'all were warned.

(But actually thank y'all, I wanted to get this out of my system so bad 😭)

✨ The first person Peach tells isn't Mario, but Toadsworth. She wants to surprise Mario with the news and is willing to wait until later in the evening, but she wants her surrogate father to know right away. Mario spends the rest of the day wondering why Toadsworth can't look at him without suddenly having to excuse himself, only to burst into ugly-crying one room over, but he decides it's probably not good.

✨ And of course he's incorrect! The news doesn't come out of nowhere; they've discussed it in the past, and recently they've decided they're ready. Now, when I say recently, I mean recently. The biggest surprise is that she's already pregnant.

✨ "Can't blame a girl for being eager!" Daisy jokes. "Making the baby's the fun part, after all." Before Peach can smack her hand in retribution, Peasley adds in, all too casually, "If the red one is anything like his brother, then I certainly understand that enthusiasm." Peach threatens to revoke their titles of Uncle and Honorary Aunt if they don't stop talking immediately.

✨ You know the ending of the All Stars version of Lost Levels, where Peach covers every surface inch of Mario's face with kisses? Peach ends up on the receiving end of that, a lot. That's his wife! She's carrying their child! She's beautiful and strong and perfect! And if he doesn't kiss her a thousand times right this instant he is going to spontaneously combust! Peach laughs through the entire process because his mustache tickles, and that makes it even better.

✨ Also, her feet like never touch the ground the whole pregnancy. The second she mentions her feet being sore or touches her back with a small wince or even just makes a face that looks anything other than content, Mario scoops her up and carries her wherever it is she's needing to go. She stops trying to protest a month in.

✨ To that end, keeping her comfortable throughout the process is a role Mario not only falls into flawlessly, but absolutely adores. He runs hot bubble baths for her every other night because royal work is taxing when you're simultaneously growing an entire human, he rubs her feet while she eats tiramisu in bed because it's 2AM and she woke up crying she wanted that particular snack so badly, he uses his Firebrand to soothe all of her aches and pains on command, and it's some of the most fulfilling work he feels he's ever done.

✨ They decide eventually that they want their child to know Italian fluently (Peach is still trying to learn it, and what better way than having both a husband and a child to hold her accountable?). So nearly every night, once Peach is comfy in bed, Mario will lay his head on her stomach and have one-sided conversations or sing a few songs; since she doesn't get to hear him speak in his native tongue at length too often unless she requests it, Peach is enraptured the whole time. She even has him teach her a few of the simpler songs so their baby will recognize the language in her voice as well. Any time Mario catches her singing one of those songs to herself, hand on her belly and gentle smile on her face, he melts into a puddle on the spot. Cue the face kisses.

✨ Mario decides pretty quickly that they're having a girl. He starts addressing her stomach as (la nostra) principessina, his contributions to name ideas are all feminine or neutral, and Luigi and Peasley jump on board too, discussing all the ways they're going to spoil their niece rotten, because a princess deserves no less! "What in the world are you going to do if it's not a girl?" Peach asks Mario one night. "I'll love them all the same!" is Mario's response. "...but I'm pretty sure she's a girl."

✨ When Peach goes into labor, the head nurse argues against Mario's presence at first, because she insists an untrained man taking up space in the room will merely be a hindrance (whether or not that man happens to be King Consort). Mario bluntly tells her she'll have to drag him out herself if she wants him gone. The nurse is a Toad and Mario is over 200lbs, so she relents.

✨ The labor ends up being long and difficult and Mario doesn't leave Peach's side for even a moment of it. It's emotionally draining, seeing her in so much pain for so long and not being able to do much about it, all while staying calm and being as much help as possible, but his perseverance is a big part of what sees her through. All that collectedness goes out the window the second he's holding their new baby in his arms. Peach just gives him a tired giggle and pats his back while he bawls his eyes out.

✨ Mario was right! They have a little girl with her papa's hair and face shape and her mama's eyes and nose. And when he sees his new granddaughter for the first time, Toadsworth may or may not vow to commit war crimes for her should the need ever arise. Peach chooses to believe she's just hearing things in her exhaustion.

[flymmsy]

Lord Enver Gortash (Part 1 of ?)

How does Counsellor Gortash secure himself a noble title? The old fashioned way - marrying into a partiar family.

The choice is incredibly calculated. A respectable family, close to the Jannaths, but not one of particular notoriety or prestige. Months of detailed research, collecting every secret the family may have. He decides to pursue their third daughter, a quieter girl who is overshadowed by the family's brilliant first daughter and dazzling second daughter. Most importantly, she is far enough removed from the line of succession so as to not raise eyebrows.

He watches her long enough to learn her habits. Always tucked into a corner, happy to allow her sisters to shine. He notes how she frequently slips away from evening gatherings to wander the gardens of whatever manor they may be in.

Charming her is easy. He's there waiting for her in the gardens one night, feigning surprise. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds these occasions terribly dull. He plays the part of like-minded confidant, orchestrating the initial meeting into a series of ongoing liaisons. He pushes their development from kindred spirits into pining friends until she is in his lap while he whispers sweet nothings into her ear. Its too easy, he almost feels guilty. Almost.

The hard part is legitimizing the union, convincing the family to let a commoner into their fold. But he made his selection for a reason. A good word put in from Wisteria Jannath (backed by a thinly-veiled, hefty threat), and he has the blessing of the girl's father.

They are wed in a simple but beautiful ceremony. He becomes Lord Enver Gortash, ever the doting and dutiful husband. That is, for as long as he must be. He does not intend to stay trapped in the union, forced to play a role he cannot truly fulfill, forced to pretend to give his heart to someone when it already belongs to another.

The time will come when he can end it and walk away with his title securely in his hand. He can wait, he's good at waiting, nothing can compare to ten years in the Hells.

Part 1 of ?

[katakosmos]

ireneee i love your takes on the crouch family, can u talk about barty's parents' relationship pls

i see them as very absorbed in each other.

their marriage was probably an arranged one, but, as they started living together, they discovered they really liked each other. emily for me was the most normal girl in the universe, she wasn't intelligent nor she had powerful magic, she had nice friends but nothing special, she wasn't beautiful. essentially the only thing that guaranteed her a future was her blood status. barty, on the other hand, had a lot of potential: he could have aimed for a prestigious career in the ministry, but instead he decided to focus first on marriage. he had grown up with an abusive father and a submissive mother, and he wanted to prove to himself and his parents that he could be better than them.

the wedding was an important occasion for both of them. emily finally had a leading role in her life, and barty took a big weight off his heart. neither of them saw marriage as a constraint, and this was the beginning of the love that was born between them.

in canon, we know that barty breaks the law to fulfill his wife's dying wish, and when she dies he is truly devastated. so there was definitely something pure between them.

and i know this isn't about barty jr, but it's impossible not to talk about him: i think his parents' biggest problem was that, when they had barty, they weren't ready to expand the family nucleus. they weren't ready to share their love with a third person. and so they left barty in the background, almost annoyed when he demanded attention.

it's not that they didn't love him. a phrase i like to use to explain their relationship (with his mother in particular) is: emily loved her son, but she loved her husband more.

theirs is probably one of the rare arranged marriages that ended well.

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Princess Jellyfish

Let's be honest: we're all a little weird. Nobody fits perfectly into the role society expects from them, and pursuing that ideal is often a losing game for a booby prize. As a certified genderfluid Aspergers' gremlin, I've been painfully aware all my life of how impossible "fitting in" can be when society's view of normal is far out of reach. But I've also been aware of how rewarding it can be to find your own version of normal out on the margins, finding a happiness all your own that doesn't need anyone else's approval to be real. And above all else, Princess Jellyfish is a celebration of exactly that kind of next-to-normalcy. It's a love letter to all of us who fell short of the scripts we were given but found something far more worthwhile along the way, all the freaks and weirdos and washouts who came into our own by leaven the beaten trail behind and charting our own quirky course through this wonderfully strange world we call home.

Our setting is Amamizuku, a boarding house for women who've slipped through the cracks of society. Chinese history nuts, train otaku, doll obsessives, women who've "failed" to live up to their expected role of finding a husband and becoming a doting wife. But that suits them all just fine: they've found their own kind of family among each other. A bizarre, constantly broke family prone to fits of geeky infodumping about their preferred hyperfixations, but a family nonetheless. All except for the youngest among them: Tsukimi, a girl still coping with the death of her mother and struggling with crippling self-doubt. Her mother always told her that all girls grow up to be princesses, but every time she sees her geeky, chubby, socially awkward uberdork self in the mirror, she sees the furthest thing from a princess she can imagine. And as happy as she is among her new friends, part of her still feels inadequate for not living up to the ideal of femininity she thinks she's supposed to fulfill.

That all changes when someone who does embody that ideal of femininity waltzes into her life. The only catch? It's actually a guy! Kuranosuke is a politician's son who's taken to cross-dressing as a way of distancing himself from his stifling family and social role, staking his own identity as a glorious drag queen in defiance of what someone like him is expected to be. And when he puts on the makeup and dresses and boob pads, he's a more womanly woman than most actual women around him. A chance encounter brings his life and Tsukimi's crashing together, and when it becomes clear that Amamizuku may be in jeapordy due to an urban development project his father is invested in, he decides to partner with her and all the boarding house girls to find some way to save it, preserving the community they've carved out for themselves in defiance of a world that wants to drag them back into "normal" society. Provided his little secret doesn't get out, of course.

It's a wonderfully quirky little show, bursting with the kind of lived-in detail that shoujo anime so often excel at. Amamizuku is a wonderfully realized community of oddball losers, and while some of the characters walk the line between amusing and annoying at times, you really come to adore all of them for their eccentricities. Tsukimi in particular is absolutely adorable, a perfect bundle of nerves and anxiety brought to life by Kana Hanazawa's stammering brilliance. She takes you through the whole gamut of emotions from quiet sadness to freaking out to hyperfixated intensity without ever missing a beat. And seeing her play off Kuranosuke as they help each other understand their own hang-ups a little better really put a smile on my face. Neither of them fit the image of what a man and woman are supposed to be, and in that mutual defiance (albeit far more purposeful on Kuranosuke's part), they're able to see the best in each other that they're not always able to see themselves.

But its in the moments where the woman of Amamizuku crash up against "normal" society that Princess Jellyfish really shines. This show is deeply interested in the connections between the marginal and the mainstream, what it means to be "normal" and what so-called normalcy takes for granted in trying to impose a universal standard. There's a great moment where Kuranosuke's giving the women glow-ups so they look trendy and fashionable in order to infiltrate a board meeting about the redevelopment, and she says, "I won't tell you to change your personal style or fit yourself into their boxes. But if you want to take on this shallow world, you have to fight on terms that shallow people understand." It's such a great summation of the pointlessness of our image-focused culture, how a little lip gloss and Coco Chanel can transform someone's perception from a layabout spinster to a glamorous socialite without changing the person at their core. And in playing with those expectations, Princess Jellyfish is able to draw out a much deeper, more honest beauty from its characters, a beauty that shines just as brightly in a pearl necklace or ratty tracksuit.

The one sour note throughout the show is a subplot involving Kuranosuke's older brother Shuu, a much more politically-minded and traditionally masculine man who gets involved with the woman in charge of pushing the landscape development. She drugs Shuu and takes pictures to make it look like they had sex when he was drunk, blackmailing him in order to get closer to his father and influence his support of her project. It's a deeply disturbing event, and it's really unclear whether or not Princess Jellyfish realizes how messed up it is. Like, this woman essentially makes Shuu think she assaulted him when he was blackout drunk, and it's clear he walks away from the encounter feeling violated (He even says out loud that he was taken advantage of!). But the show pretty much puts all that messiness aside for the sake of fast-tracking a romantic subplot between them that, I'm sorry, is just the most forced thing in the world even without the not-actually-rape hanging in the background. It feels grossly nonchalant about such a serious subject, and while it far from ruins the show, it makes every scene involving them a chore to sit through.

Perhaps that all comes to a much more satisfying conclusion later in the manga. Sadly, this eleven-episode adaptation comes nowhere near close to an ending for any of the threads it sets up, leaving a distinct sense of anticlimax when all is said and done. But hey, if Kimi ni Todoke can somehow wrangle a sequel over a decade later, perhaps there's still hope for a second season of Princess Jellyfish yet. Until then, though, we'll have to remain content with this unfinished but still incredibly enjoyable taste of life on the wrong (but actually right) side of the tracks. And I give it a score of:

7/10

And now to re-watch Kimi ni Todoke and continue reveling in the joys of 2010-era shoujo anime. See you next time!

[thesilverlady]

What is so good in Show! Alicent lacking the slightest bits of agency? What is so good about a character who is nothing but an eternal victim whose 24/7 miserable? Is that what fans say is better than Grrm writing?

i generally don't agree with the opinion of the show being better written than fire & blood. Despite how rushed the book is and some flaws it has, it's insane to claim the deep themes don't evoke a better storytelling.

With that being said, if you separate the two completely and take the show as a product of its own I suppose the appeal to show Alicent in particular is a character who has suffered a lot due to her circumstances.

Alicent in the show starts by being a 14 year old who is best friends with the princess. Her father forces her to "seduce" the king who has recently lost his wife and the king completely goes along with it.

As a consequence, she's brought into a marriage unwillingly where she has to fulfill her duty (marital rape) and she loses the only friendship she had because the princess viewed the action as a betrayal....

Safe to say those are already enough to give the audience room to sympathize.

in episode 5, there's this strange shift where young Alicent is supposed to be heading towards an "antagonistic" role by wearing her green dress at rhaenyra's wedding and she seems to be embracing her family's (the Hightower's) support. <- I use the word "supposed" because the whole thing is very strangely written and Alicent’s feelings over criston & rhaenyra never made sense. It doesn't help the cast has all said different things about it, so let's leave it vague.

Moving to ep6-10 Alicent who is an adult and meant to be more shady (depending on the interpretation you go with). Some people still love her because they pity her, she's a character who has suffered and continues to suffer. She never really gains agency in the years; her father is still controlling, her rotting husband is still shitty, her unruly sons are heading towards being awful and she cannot understand the daughter she has.

There are plenty of actions that make her dislikable to other people; the holier than thou attitude, disrespecting/attacking rhaenyra publicly, her hypocrisy over passing judgement towards others and not her own family etc

But for the people who root for show Alicent sympathy & empathy seem to be the key. Some acknowledge her flaws and still love her despite them while other pretend they're not here or they justify them.

It's also important to mention than while this definitely doesn't apply towards all Alicent fans I've definitely seen the extremists ones loving her due to her being a submissive character who accepts the abuse in the patriarchal environment without fighting back and as a matter of fact supporting this way of life and of course she's doing all that while looking pretty because Olivia Cookie is objectively a beautiful woman

[meandmyechoes]

Sorry I dropped off last week there.

had to go through something, milestone i guess.

don't know when, i started hating getting personal, even here, my last retreat. i just don't want to write something too, incriminating i guess. not that i'm being spied on, that said.

anyway, i dropped off of kingoh last week because i had to do something familial.

my father fell ill on July 26, while I was in Japan, the morning I was all excited to meet rita moru and kaku-san and jeramie. he was hospitalized for nearly two months and passed away the morning of the body swap episode. it was his funeral last week.

i. i cried a lot that day. i think i finally let it out, or i wasn't not letting myself hold it in to be "strong" for somebody else anymore. i don't know what to do. i still don't.

long story short, i've felt like i was playing a husband's role in the family for the past few years. i don't blame either of my parents for that because, i just don't have the strength to fight anymore.

I haven't been this depressed since back in 16 when depression first happened. I'm long past any suicidal relapse but i really really hate how emotionally tired it made me.

weekly kingoh is literally all that supported me through it. To have a tangible goal and recharge every week. the first time i went to see kishi after my first real-time sentai in 2018, I wrote in the message that toku gave me "courage" to realize what I love. it is still true and i'm grateful to have sentai in my life. It gave me the courage to travel to a foreign land alone, to dress pretty, to talk to new people. Kingoh is probably the last... thing I am this into, body and soul, and I want to make friends through it, crossing borders, but i always have another excuse to post even a weekly review in another language 😅

you see me churning out subs with a double release this week, that is just me grabbing straws trying to make my existence feel useful. don't worry, i don't sound as self-deprecating as that sounds, just awfully self-aware because woah, it's been 10 years co-existing with depression! - i've went throguh this cycle of gifted kids burnout + eldest daughter syndrome too many times. there's at least three more videos in my draft that've left there for 2 months.

how ironic and fitting that I said goodbye to my father the same summer Himeno did to her parents. I think about it a lot since I got back. Even before I visited him for the first time, when he was recovering just fine, I knew I, don't know what to say to him, because I don't know how to say anything out loud anymore. And I hate that I'm going to a stupid job every day instead of figuring out the answer, it's absurd it's absurd. it's absurd how death is not like anything i read or saw.

it's so so quiet. it's so so quiet. so so long.

I think a lot about Himeno's words after I came back. "A farewell without goodbye is not beautiful. What I want is still ahead of me." Regrets? Wish-i-could've's? Of course there're a lot. But what's important is to take care of the living because we can't change the past. I think this year in particular, and like OP said, the kings all have tragic backstories, but they still do their job and take responsibility to lead their people. I've always see myself as a leader - want to be a leader (despite the imposter syndrome in recent years). I just want to be a good person and finally one day I will over come the conditioned fear to promise because now I can fulfill them.

What was I talking. I feel better now I let it out. I suppose I'm gonna spell out what I'm gonna do next to conclude this essay. em. i don't know, i'm gonna go home and go to sleep. damn Dad left me a house in the shabs. baka.

[olko71]

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on https://yaroreviews.info/2023/09/mohamed-al-fayed-former-harrods-owner-dies-at-94

Mohamed Al Fayed: Former Harrods owner dies at 94

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Mohamed Al Fayed, the former Harrods boss whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, has died aged 94.

Born in Egypt, he built a business empire in the Middle East before moving to the UK in the 1970s.

However, he never realised his ambition to gain a passport for his adopted country.

He spent his later years questioning the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Dodi and Diana.

Mr Al Fayed had remained largely out of the public limelight in the past decade, living in his Surrey mansion with his wife Heini.

In a statement released on Friday, his family said: “Mrs Mohamed Al Fayed, her children and grandchildren wish to confirm that her beloved husband, their father and their grandfather, Mohamed, has passed away peacefully of old age on Wednesday August 30, 2023.

“He enjoyed a long and fulfilled retirement surrounded by his loved ones.”

The life of colourful tycoon Mohamed Al Fayed

Princess Diana and Dodi love affair becomes opera

History of Harrods department store

Michael Cole, a former BBC Royal correspondent who later worked for Mr Al Fayed as director for public affairs at Harrods, described him as “an extraordinary character”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Al Fayed was a “fascinating and a larger than life” character and someone who was “full of humanity”.

Fulham Football Club, which Mr Al Fayed owned for many years, said that it was “incredibly saddened to learn” of his death.

“We owe Mohamed a debt of gratitude for what he did for our club, and our thoughts now are with his family and friends at this sombre time,” it said in a statement.

His successor at the club, Shahid Khan, expressed his condolences in a tribute on the club’s website.

“The story of Fulham cannot be told without a chapter on the positive impact of Mr Al Fayed as chairman,” he said.

“His legacy will be remembered for our promotion to the Premier League, a Europa League Final, and moments of magic by players and teams alike.”

Journalist Piers Morgan described Al Fayed as an “extraordinary tour de force of a man who never got over the death of his beloved son Dodi in the crash that also killed Diana”, adding that he was a “flawed, complex character” but that he liked him.

Mr Al Fayed rose from selling fizzy drinks on the streets of his native Alexandria in Egypt to become a big name in business with all the right contacts.

His break came after he met his first wife, Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi millionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi – who employed him in his Saudi Arabian import business.

The role helped him forge new connections in Egypt, and although the marriage lasted little more than two years, Mr Al Fayed went on to launch his own shipping business.

In 1966, he became an adviser to one of the world’s richest men, the Sultan of Brunei.

He moved to Britain in 1974 and five years later bought the Ritz hotel in Paris with his brother Ali for £20m.

They went on to take over Harrods in 1985 for £615m, following a vicious bidding war with mining conglomerate the Lonrho group.

Under his ownership, Fulham FC rose from the third tier to the Premier League.

He gave generously to charities including Great Ormond Street Hospital and, as a father of five, showed a particular interest in helping underprivileged or unwell children.

He set up the Al Fayed Charitable Foundation in 1987 to better the lives of impoverished, traumatised and very sick youngsters.

It was from his Ritz hotel in Paris that his son Dodi, a film producer, and his then-partner Diana, Princess of Wales, departed, before the car crash which killed them both in 1997.

Mr Al Fayed never recovered from the shock of the crash, becoming obsessed with the speculation surrounding the deaths.

His evidence at the inquest in February 2008 included claims that the deaths were on the orders of Prince Philip and with the connivance of MI6.

They were deemed a “conspiracy theory” by the coroner and rejected by the jury.

Mr Al Fayed twice failed in his attempt to secure British citizenship.

On the second occasion in 1995, angered by the rejection, he told the press that he had paid two Conservative ministers, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, to ask questions in the House of Commons about his interests.

They both left the government, and Mr Hamilton, who denied the allegation, also lost a libel case against Mr Al Fayed.

A third politician, Jonathan Aitken, who was then a cabinet minister, also resigned after Mr Al Fayed revealed that he stayed for free at the Ritz in Paris at the same time as a group of Saudi arms dealers.

In 2010, Mr Al Fayed sold Harrods to the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar. Nearly half of the purchase price was used to clear the company’s debts.

Royal historian Prof Kate Williams said Mr Al Fayed was a man on a mission after his son’s death, but said he would also be remembered as a man who reshaped the iconic Harrods department store.

“It was his dream and his baby,” she said.

She added that Mr Al Fayed was a great benefactor for charities and hospitals – which is how he met Princess Diana.

“He was a very significant force in British life,” Prof Williams told BBC Breakfast, adding that he was a figure who would not be forgotten.

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29 June 2022

[queerpyracy]

Queerpyracy Writing Masterpost

Original Fiction

The Resurrectionist | 6k | weird western | 1st person pov

A trans necromancer tries to escape from her past, only for it to come tracking her down in the form of a resurrected soldier with his own ghosts in tow.

They Shall Take Up Serpents | 6k | weird western | 1st person pov

An unnamed protagonist tracks down the mysterious faith healer responsible for her parents’ disappearance. Warning for implied cult dynamics and magical/spiritual parasitism.

Wolf's Price (ao3) | 127k | fantasy | multiple 1st person pov

The first draft of a fantasy novel with an intended sequel. The mistress of a war hero and his lover finds herself unwillingly at the center of a centuries old conflict between their two kingdoms, placed there by gods with their own agendas. As she is crushed between a past she is hiding from and an uncertain future, she begins to imagine the possibility of a land without kings.

Brother of the Moon (ao3) | 79k | fantasy | dual third person pov

A monk who serves as his lord's spiritual counselor has been charged with finding his lord a pious wife. Lady Margaret, eager to escape her father's household by any means necessary, is willing to fulfill that role. On the journey to meet her betrothed husband the two become entangled in an affair that will alter both their lives--and in particular, Lady Margaret is more than she seems.

Frankenstein

let them come and tear us free (we are bound eternally) | 19k creature/elizabeth and creature/elizabeth/victor multichapter, elizabeth pov. an AU where elizabeth is in ingolstadt with victor during the making of the creature.

from my clay to mould me | 2k victor/creature one shot, creature pov. an imagined meeting between victor & the creature before they reach the arctic.

the night that comes to hide | 2.6k victor/creature one shot, victor pov. set the night that victor destroys the creature’s companion.

we face the night | 40k creature/elizabeth multichapter, elizabeth pov. an alternate version of what happened after victor and elizabeth's wedding night.

[sunflowerdigs]

Anyway, it's fine to think that a gay sexual experience might be healing for Roman. Certainly, it's no worse than thinking that being degraded without aftercare or safe words by his dad's most loyal employee is healing for him. In fact, it's kind of odd that out of those two options, anyone would pick gay sex as the more inherently negative one for a CSA victim (which we don't actually even know that Roman is).

This is Succession. Every relationship and encounter is driven by trauma. Whether it's the addict currently dating another addict so that he can use, or the woman trying to control her gold-digger husband in the same way that her father controlled her so that he won't leave. Or the aforementioned degradation between a boss and employee who's known him since he was a kid. Or the homoerotic frathouse hazing relationship between a mid-level executive and much younger employee. And yet, every one of those relationship has its redeeming factors, ways in which it has allowed the character in it to heal or function despite perhaps not being 100% healthy. So, it's weird to apply a different standard to a queer sex act, suggesting that it must be 100% healthy and therapeutic or else fans aren't allowed to enjoy it or hope it happens. Because fans enjoy all of the relationships listed above and talk all the time about both their positive and negative aspects.

Logan's abuse of Roman is irrevocably linked to homophobia. Specifically, homophobia against effeminate men who enjoy being fucked by other men. For whatever reason, he picked Roman out as the one most likely to fulfill that particular role as a young child and physically abused him because of it. In fact, that particular prejudice rebounds throughout the series. So, is it so surprising that fans might hope that the specific kind of sex that Logan constantly denigrates to Roman might be a part of Roman's healing? Gay sex often can be healing for gay/bi people who have felt lonely and isolated because they've assumed their whole adult lives that they were bad at sex.

Like, lbr, gay sex for any of these characters probably isn't even on the table. We live in a heteronormative society, that's just how it is. So why attack folks for hoping for it? I see things all the time on the tag that make me side-eye, but I leave them alone. It's a complicated show and more than one reading of a character is possible.

[richmond-rex]

Honestly the fact that Anne Neville and Elizabeth of York seemed to get on is pretty endearing to me. It would be interesting to know how much (if she did) Anne influenced EoY's style of queenship. Especially since, I think that, whilst there is something to be said for Richard having the potential to have been a good king hade things not gone like that, imo the more tragic 'lost opportunity' is that Anne seems to have fulfilled the role of queenship perfectly (except for motherhood I guess, but that's not her fault), and it's a shame that side of her doesn't seem to be discussed much. Now I'm just imagining the two of them in the afterlife chatting about clothes whilst their husbands glare at eachother lol.

Hello! I think this question has two parts: Anne Neville's relationship with Elizabeth of York and Anne Neville's style of queenship, so please bear with me while I go through all the points. It’s rather long so I apologise in advance!

The traditional disclaimer is that we don't know much about Elizabeth of York's relationship with her aunt Anne Neville, but what many people might not realise is that they didn't spend much time together. Richard's time as Duke of Gloucester was mainly spent in his Northern estates where Anne was based, so apart from some big court occasions, Elizabeth would not have seen much of her aunt growing up. Once Richard took the throne, Elizabeth would likewise have seen very little of her aunt. She remained in sanctuary from May 1483 to March 1484. She left — maybe Richard publicly received his nieces or maybe they simply departed sanctuary after he swore his oath not to harm them — but it seems Elizabeth and her sisters didn't reside at court after that. The continuator of the Croyland Chronicle specifically says Elizabeth Woodville sent her daughters to Richard III’s court around Christmas. Then, Elizabeth of York either remained at court until February or until her aunt Anne died in March 1485. The longest time they spent together to develop some kind of relationship, at maximum, was three months (December 1484 - March 1485). 

The thing about Elizabeth and Anne sharing similar dresses in shape and colour is that it's not really a sign of a close relationship—we must remember that in a medieval monarchy, the personal was political and the political personal—though it could very well be a sign of a close relationship in the right circumstances. However, considering Anne Neville barely knew Elizabeth by that time, I would say it's rather a sign of Anne's attempts at reconciling her husband's family. It was part of her job as a queen consort to act as a pacifying agent, and Richard himself would try to reconcile the rest of the Woodville faction by offering them pardons in the following months. Gifting Elizabeth of York a dress in close resemblance to her own would send a clear political image, even if a false one: this is a united family. Indeed, once queen herself, Elizabeth of York and her mother-in-law Margaret were seen together on diverse court occasions wearing similar outfits (although they likely had a close relationship, sharing similar outfits is not evidence of that). 

Elizabeth of York would have seen very little of Anne Neville's queenship to have been inspired by it. In contrast, from birth to age seventeen she had experienced her mother's queenship first at hand. Elizabeth Woodville kept many of her children close and Elizabeth of York in particular is noted to have accompanied her mother almost everywhere. Aged three, she was there with her mother as Elizabeth Woodville visited Norwich to receive the city's welcome. Aged four, she was there with her mother and father as they made a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Aged six, she was there as her mother received Lord Gruuthuyse of Bruges. Aged eight, she was there at Windsor riding a horse alongside her mother as they took part in the Order of the Garter celebrations. Aged ten, she was again at her mother's side at the reinterment of her grandfather Richard duke of York. Aged twelve, she was there beside her mother rewarding the jousters competing at the celebrations of her brother's wedding. And aged fourteen, she was there at the baptism of her youngest sister standing as one of her godmothers. To quote Arlene Okerlund:

To the degree that royal occasion permitted, [Queen Elizabeth Woodville] included her children in the rituals and revelries of the Court— introducing them to responsibilities they would encounter as heirs to the Yorkist dynasty. Such nurturing during childhood greatly influenced Elizabeth of York throughout her adult life. As queen consort to Henry VII, she surrounded herself with family—sisters, uncles, nieces, nephews—including them in her Court and generously paying their expenses from her privy purse.

Likewise, Laynesmith and Beer have noticed how significantly Elizabeth Woodville influenced her daughter's style of queenship, even the nature of her patronage activities. In a sense, their performance of queenship was much the same—the only difference is that Elizabeth Woodville was the victim of a slander campaign against her family. Indeed, we can recognise the extent Elizabeth of York's Woodville relatives influenced other areas of her life. Comparatively, Anne’s three-month influence would be very minimal.

Now, speaking about Anne Neville’s queenship: again we suffer from a lack of sources, but equally, she simply didn’t have a long tenure as queen to have left an easy mark that we can assess. But for an informal analysis, let’s see what we have; let’s go step by step by the outline I laid out here.

1) Perceived as an exemplar of womanhood: We have unclear evidence. The priest John Rous described Anne as ‘seemly’, ‘beauteous’ and ‘pious’ — that’s keeping with exemplar womanhood, but that very priest was commissioned (either by Anne Beauchamp, Anne Neville or Richard III) to laud her genealogy, and indeed, boosted Anne at the expense of her own sister Isabel as if Anne was the eldest and true heiress of Warwick. 

2) Giving birth to royal heirs: During her brief tenure she saw her only son die, nevertheless, for half of that brief period she had indeed been the mother of the heir to the throne. There’s some evidence that she was quite involved with Edward’s household and that she and Richard were trying to set it up in Middleham (or somewhere else in the North) in contrast to the household of the last Prince of Wales, which had been in Ludlow in the Welsh marches. Unfortunately, Edward of Middleham’s death + Anne’s real or perceived barrenness gave grounds to rumours that her husband would set her aside by means of a divorce (or poisoning). Indeed, it undermined her queenship.

3) Appointing numerous officials to handle household and financial administration + collecting honourable female attendants: It’s likely that her household either absorbed Elizabeth Woodville’s former officials (as Richard absorbed Edward IV’s) or that she brought her own from her time as Duchess of Gloucester; probably a mix of both. As for her ladies, Laynesmith comments that “the majority of those who appear to have been in Anne Neville's household were members of northern gentry families, and were probably her attendants as duchess of Gloucester also”. It included some family members like her cousin Elizabeth Parr and her illegitimate half-sister Margaret Huddleston. 

4) Supervising various family matters + providing hospitality and welcome to guests at her husband’s court: The closest we can get to that is when she received Elizabeth Woodville’s daughters for Christmas 1484 and tried to have them reconciled and integrated into her husband’s regime. In any case, unfortunately, we don’t know if that was her idea or Richard III’s.

5) Advising her husband: This sections ties a bit to the last point because we don’t have any kind of evidence if she did advise her husband (though she likely did) or if Richard III deferred to her advice/requests. For example, we have at least two occasions when Henry VII told someone else he took some decision at Elizabeth of York’s request. However, given the private nature of this activity, it is unlikely that much evidence would have survived. Maybe the main point should be: did Richard III listen to Anne Neville? It’s hard to tell though he probably did on some occasions at least or at some point in their married life. Their point is to have evidence of this whilst Anne was queen.

6) Spiritual support; patronising individuals; both lay and religious: Her previous links during her time as duchess might explain why she didn’t join any fraternity whilst queen. However, in March 1484 'the most serene Queen Anne... augmented and endowed [Queens’ college] with great rents'. Scholars have speculated whether that was Richard III’s initiative, though many of the estates granted to the college had initially been property of Anne’s mother, Anne Beauchamp. That’s the extent of her charitable endeavours as queen as far as we can tell, though let me remind you that even this initiative was political: the college’s last patroness had been Elizabeth Woodville, and her patronage was necessarily cut off when Richard took over.

7) Enriching her husband’s kingship, taking part in courtly rituals, complementing the king’s masculine qualities, acting in a Marian-like capacity as intercessor: 

Anne Neville provided status and wealth to Richard III during his time as Duke of Gloucester and was an instrumental part in the establishment of his strong grip in the North. Richard III leaned almost entirely on his Northern powerbase for his usurpation of the English throne (so in a sense, Anne Neville was instrumental to that takeover as wel). According to Croyland, many people were loyal to Richard thanks to Anne, and his kingship was threatened when people perceived Anne to have suffered slights (real or imagined). She took part in courtly ceremonies and in that capacity legitimised her husband’s kingship, but we don’t have examples of any intercession carried out by Anne on behalf of any individuals, or indeed like I talked in point 5, of Richard III taking her counsel. 

TL;DR: We can’t say if Anne Neville fulfilled the role of queenship perfectly. She may have lacked in some areas, though it’s unclear whether that was because of the circumstances of her husband’s usurpation, her short time as queen, or any personal fault of her own — obviously, her son’s death and her infertility were not actually her fault, but her sickness contributed to the descredit of her husband’s regime, either because they thought he was harming her, or because people believed it to be God’s just punishment for the murder of Edward IV’s children. Again, circumstances outside of her control, but that played a role nonetheless 🌹x

[heartfe1t]

she is admittedly grateful for the shift of subject, for his allowing her something softer, more bright than the loss her family has suffered of late. she's always been poised, but she's never been solemn without need for it. she'll mourn- as she must. but she will not let any of this break her spirit, even if some might deem that an awful thing to believe.    ❝    i too wish him well in his passions. people who are allowed to fulfill their dreams are so lucky indeed.    ❞    not that she's allowed herself the luxury of the dream itself, let alone dreamed of fulfilling something.    ❝    when i am again able to leave court- i should so like to see him in a show. perhaps you would write? to inform me of such things as time and place of course. you know, i do so enjoy receiving letters. sending them also. even knowing the likelihood of others eyes befalling my words.    ❞    she says with a slight nod of her head in acknowledgment. she's giving him an excuse to write her, and telling him she'll happily engage in such correspondence if he'd like it.

    ❝    i have been deeply fortunate for the love in my life.    ❞    she tells the prince with a soft smile and a nod of her head.    ❝    my parents, but truly my brother in particular, they could never let me be neglected. even when their responsibilities have been passed on to another household. it is no longer my father who shall have the decisive word in my future, but he wields his influence kindly. i am grateful for that.    ❞    she's forever respectful towards her parents, and part of it is the decisive duty of a daughter, but she really does have gratitude towards her family for not abandoning her once they could have her wed.    ❝    you are so very kind to say so. though i suppose i have never met an unkind version of you, your highness. i know i cannot be their mother, but someone must play this role. and i am glad to do it. octavia's wedding last year was a beautiful affair, and she will have advice for her sisters, too. and on things i can only speak of secondhand... but she will not be the one who's meant to be making introductions for them, and the twins will need my help.    ❞    she was somewhat excited to help find the two girls their husbands. she wants them to find happiness, comfort, above all else. the crown need not touch their heads. they deserve to find something wonderful, whether that comes with a crown or not.    

❝    well do know i am grateful for your kindness... it will be lovely to see your face again more frequently. i do so enjoy being around those i've known since i was young... were you hoping to see grace or constance while you are here? i'm sure henry and fiona can spare their company a short while, given the overwhelming nature of such a time, just ahead of their coronation...    ❞    she has to ask him, though he's been so kind in his attentiveness to her present situation, she does have to consider if he may have been sent here to consider a potential bride. he would do well to be kind to her if this were the case, and it would be only a few more months before the season for such a thing comes upon them after all.    ❝    your travels have been enjoyable i hope? no trouble?    ❞    asked with a face of true concern as the princess looks at him, otherwise composed as she should be. 

he    knows    they    aren't    supposed    to    be    so    formal    as    if    she    weren't    in    mourning,    but    he    doesn't    want    to    keep    bringing    the    mood    down.    mimi    doesn't    need    the    constant    reminder    of    loss,    and    he    doesn't    want    to    be    the    one    that    makes    that    the    only    thing    they    talk    about.    so,    he    moves    on.    ❝    he's    quite    the    talent.    i    hope    he    finds    great    success    in    his    endeavors.    i    am    glad    to    see    the    ways    more    and    more    people    are    seeing    the    value    in    art    forms    like    this.    i    like    to    know    my    brother    could    pursue    his    dreams.    ❞    he    says    with    a    wider    smile    now,    thinking    of    his    younger    brother.    he    was    so    proud    of    nate.    he    wanted    his    little    brother    to    be    able    to    do    whatever    he    wanted    in    life.    anthony    knew    that    he    was    the    one    that    was    going    to    take    the    throne    one    day,    so    knowing    that    nate    was    happy    with    his    life    was    what    really    mattered    to    him.    

❝    i'm    glad    there    are    plenty    of    people    who    care    about    you    around    you.    some    people    in    our    position    marry    and    then    find    their    friends    and    family    distance    themselves.    you    should    have    people    around    you    in    your    time    of    need.    ❞    he    would    like    to    be    one    of    those    people,    but    he    knows    that    he    can't    make    any    advances    toward    her.    it    will    be    a    year    before    he    can    properly    court    her,    but    he'd    like    to    be    her    friend    in    the    meantime.    ❝    they're    very    lucky    to    have    you    to    help    navigate    the    next    few    years    of    their    lives.    you're    the    most    poised    princess    i've    ever    seen    at    court.    anyone    would    be    lucky    to    have    your    insight    and    guidance.    ❞    her    stepdaughters    were    going    to    age    into    society    soon    enough    and    anthony    was    interested    to    see    the    matches    that    she    would    make    for    them.    ❝    i    would    say    as    much    as    this    time    might    not    be    about    you,    you    shouldn't    have    to    put    your    feelings    on    the    back    burner,    either.    truly,    if    you    ever    need    anything,    just    let    me    know.    i    think    i'll    be    at    court    for    a    while    now    that    my    travels    to    our    allied    kingdoms    has    come    to    an    end.    ❞    he    wants    to    reach    out    and    offer    her    a    comforting    arm,    place    a    hand    on    her    shoulder,    but    he    refrains,    hands    clasped    behind    his    back.

[nordleuchten]

hey i was re-reading the woman of chateau lafayette (for the hundredth time 'cause even if it has its parts of fiction, i still love love it lol) and this line caught my attention:

“Yet it was Gilbert who had unexpectedly stolen the show with his impersonation of a mean-spirited judge, skewering the judicial system in France that sent peasants to be tortured, broken, or burned alive.”

i know it's not much, but, what was he saying? was it a part of a play? was it smth he created at the time? do we have any sort of transcript or smth about what he said? I'm really curious about it lol

and on another note: did Laf (or Adrienne and the kids) liked plays/going to the theater or smth?

Thank you <3

Dear @msrandonstuff,

that is an interesting question to be sure, but I am quite confident that I know the exact incident that the author of the book, Stephanie Dray, was hinting at. The quote you send me is preceded by a passage in the book where Adrienne tells the reader that La Fayette and her brother-in-law were both accepted into the Society of the Wooden Sword. The Society of the Wooden Sword was named after the café the Wooden Sword, where the group would later meet. The Society was made up of a new and young set of courtiers. They centred mainly around Marie Antoinette and the Comte d'Artois, the King’s younger brother and later Charles X (whom La Fayette very actively helped deposing). They were generally more relaxed, dressed more casually and even toyed with liberal and republican ideas.

The Comte de Ségur, a relative and friend of La Fayette’s wrote in his Memoirs the following passage:

In the midst of our amusements, balls and rehearsals, politics were humourously introduced, under the disguise of folly. The recall of the parliaments then engaged the public attention. We parodied the sittings of those grave assemblies. The part of first president was performed by one of the princes; others acted the parts of advocates, attornies-general, and counsellors; and, what may now appear a singular coincidence La Fayette in one of those merry audiences fulfilled the functions of solicitor-general.

And here is the full passage from Dray’s book, The Women of Chateau Lafayette:

He [La Fayette] was wrong [about being a nobody in society] ; his marriage to me [Adrienne] , his association with the Noailles, made him a somebody. And we were invited to every royal function. By winter my brother-in-law, Marc, had been welcomed into the ranks of the Society of the Wooden Sword, and he obtained an invitation for Gilbert—an invitation my father said he must accept. Gilbert joined, but soon vexed my father for participating in their antics. “What could he have been thinking?”

“It was only a performance to amuse the queen,” I said in my husband’s defense. “The king’s own brothers took part.”

They too had stood upon tavern stools to parody stodgy old nobles. Yet it was Gilbert who had unexpectedly stolen the show with his impersonation of a mean-spirited judge, skewering the judicial system in France that sent peasants to be tortured, broken, or burned alive.

As to the second part of the question, yes, La Fayette liked the Theatre although from what I have read, I would say that he liked the Opera even more than the Theatre. In the early 1830’s with all the revolutionary sentiments reigning again in Paris and his role in all of it, he abstained from the Opera for some time (as well as other public events) and he sorely missed the visits to the Opera. When his children became old enough, they often accompanied him and later also brought their own children along. La Fayette’s daughters and some of his grand-daughters seemed to share his enthusiasm in particular. When visiting England as a young man in 1776, La Fayette even attended the Opera with Henry Clinton. The two would later be on opposing sides during the War of American Independence. I do not know quite as much about Adrienne, but she seems to have preferred staying at home and meeting and entertaining people there instead of going out, especially as a young woman and when her children were still little.

I hope you have/had an amazing day!

Louis Philippe, comte de Ségur, Memoirs and Recollections of Count Segur, Ambassador From France to the Courts of Russia and Prussia, Wells And Lilly-Court-Street, Boston, 1825, p. 34.

Stephanie Dray, The Women of Chateau Lafayette, Berkley, New York, 2021, p. 73-74.

[ophliea]

the  dramaturg’s  notebook:       in regards to “i was the more deceived”  &  my personal interpretation of the nunnery scene.

firstly  ––   some performances i like of this scene:    tennant  &  gale,    scott  &  findlay.

to be perfectly blunt,  i comply with the understanding that hamlet and ophelia shared mutual affection,  a deep seated love for one another which at one time might have been on a steady pace towards marriage.  it would have faced its own obstacles,  naturally,  but i believe the two of them under normal circumstances would likely have been married in a matter of years.

ophelia’s obsession with marriage is a beast in and of itself and technically was developed completely separately from her feelings for hamlet,  though understandably the two have become conflated over time,  and so it becomes impossible to talk of one without the other.  ophelia’s aspirations could be summed up entirely by her usefulness as a wife,  for a variety of reasons  ––  

to begin with,  though she was given education from a young age,  she was only ever treated,  in practice,  like a doll made of porcelain by her father and brother both.  she had no individual freedoms,  remained under the guardianship of her father even after she’d come of age,  and was discouraged at every angle from actualizing her own autonomy.  the prospect of marriage,  funnily,  offered a new sort of captivity that seemed less restraining than her childhood.  partnership in an official capacity with another would mean others would be forced to recognize her as outside of their jurisdiction,  though she was well aware it only meant a new keeper of sorts. 

another motivation for desiring marriage so fully was that it seemed a good lady’s fate.  above all,  it’s natural and expected of her,  and it would be fulfilling a responsibility that was one of the very few she was entrusted with.  ophelia’s utility hinges on her relation to those around her and how she serves them best;  the ultimate dedication of service would be to her husband,  and she had been raised to believe this.  she largely only had her father and brother to insist on the particulars of this role,  as her mother passed when she was quite young.  with her father,  he spoke of the rules young ladies ought follow in order to maintain virtue and marriageability. with her brother,  she learned that it was only men who had freedom before marriage.  men were not on a clock,  either,  which was a funny lesson  ––  while he galavanted in paris,  ophelia wondered at the years she had left,  made rampant calculations of when she needed to settle.  he hadn’t even spared it a thought.  but he did speak of marriage,  sometimes  ––  and she would note how he spoke of women he most decidedly wouldn’t marry,  and how it reflected their character.  a loose woman,  a woman much too argumentative,  a woman who nagged,  a woman who lazed.  there was no honor in being a woman on her own,  there was only fulfillment and worthiness is being the type a man would take as a wife.

and finally,  ophelia was quite simply a romantic.  she grew up reading fairytales,  often morbid kinds like the little mermaid and cinderella,  but still,  romances all the same.  thumbelina was her favorite romance,  and she daydreamed about it often  ––   it encapsulated exactly how she felt about marriage;  to be granted wings by your holy binding to another.

WITH  THIS  CONTEXT,     CONTINUE  . . .     throughout this scene,  act iii  scene i,  we see at first a private conversation made public as hamlet discovers he and ophelia are being spied on by her father and his uncle.  what begins as an intimate display of the complicated nature of their relationship becomes a mad show of rage and betrayal which has a bit more to do with the anger he feels towards his uncle than any actual ill will towards ophelia,  but it sears her all the same and he becomes cruel with her and lashes out.

i don’t believe that,  prior to the line  “ where’s  your  father? ”  that anything hamlet says is meant to be mean.  it is meant to cut himself off from her,  and in my own interpretation,  the speech he first gives  (below)  is actually alluding in part to that obsession mentioned above that ophelia holds with marriage and family:

HAMLET    

       Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a            breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;            but yet I could accuse me of such things that it            were better my mother had not borne me: I am very           proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at           my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,           imagination to give them shape, or time to act them           in. What should such fellows as I do crawling            between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,            all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

it is all to say:  forget me,  but more than this,  forget any man who asks for your hand or offers you what you so long for,  because we are wretched sinners all of us.  bear not any children for they’ll be sinners by nature,  because it is human to be such.  love no one because you cannot trust any of them:   your own spouse might kill you dead,  your own brother might,  everyone in the world is a liar.

it’s very much a warning rather than a admonishment,  which is why i personally like adaptations that have hamlet speak it softly and almost near-apologetically,  again because i believe that just at first,  just in this moment of time,  he believes this to be a wholly private conversation.  the tone shifts and the nunnery comment takes on a completely separate meaning once he gains an understanding of ophelia’s betrayal of his trust,  in that the two of them are being actively spied on.  

HAMLET    

       If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for             thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as           snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a            nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs            marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough            what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,            and quickly too. Farewell.

these words are meant to be cutting  ––  directly and specifically so.

róisín,  you’re wondering,  but what about the way he speaks at the beginning!  that’s a bit mean!  right-o,  i think though the conversation is private and there’s that moment of sincerity when he gives the first nunnery speech,  i think he starts off the interaction as if trying to push her away.  this is why i love tennant’s performance so much,  because i think he showcased these beats perfectly.  

it also shows this genuine madness that hamlet is fighting,  which is to say sincere grief and confusion  ––  it makes sense even in private for him to doubt ophelia’s honesty and loyalty,  because he has been betrayed by his uncle,  by his mother,  and he feels utterly alone in his current predicament.  the way i see this scene,  the reaction given by ophelia to his beginning statements and insults and claims of never having loved her,  but also having loved her once,  etc.,  her reaction to all of this is something which grounds him in speaking candidly if only for a moment.

to end the scene,  ophelia then speaks alone,  and i think it’s a speech that mostly goes without saying.  she laments   “  WOE  IS  ME / TO  HAVE  SEEN  WHAT  I  HAVE  SEEN,   SEE  WHAT  I  SEE  ”   which i think is the true tragedy of it all,  that she has experienced in so short a period of time the greatest love she’d ever known and the cruelest.  by one who she’d never been made to feel uncomfortable with,  as i believe hamlet to be one of the few people ophelia felt like a real,  actual person besides,  to be used now as a proxy for his anger.  to be used by others as a pawn against him.  she is forced into this situation of being thought of completely differently now by the only man she had come close to marrying.